Sarkozy's First Government: Money Men, Jet-Setters, and Judases
By Jacques Cheminade

PARIS, May 18--During his recent stay in Malta, Nicolas Sarkozy stated: "We need many Vincent Bollores, many Martin Bouygueses, many Bernard Arnaults, many Pinaults for France," ticking off the names of French social "success stories."

At the Gaveau concert hall in Paris, after the first round of the Presidential elections, Sarkozy told us he would protect his fellow Frenchmen who were victims of social injustices, before rushing off, after the second round, to Fouquet's, a restaurant belonging to the casino king, and then to the yacht of Vincent Bolloré, his billionaire friend. His government bears the signature of that mindset: as an emanation of the financial oligarchy, it exhibits the etiquette of a Lady-Do-Rightly, so as to impress its admirers.

However, it cannot suppress the truth, as it is exposed even by his own friends, as Thierry Wolton in Le Figaro of May 7 wrote: "With the election of Nicolas Sarkozy, France is taking a neo-conservative turn of the same nature as those known by their times, Britain under Margaret Thatcher, America under Ronald Reagan, Spain under José María Aznar, or Italy under Silvio Berlusconi." The latter brags that he inspired his French friend, while the former neo-fascist Gianfranco Fini covers him with great honors.

In reality, the Sarkozy government represents a break with the history of the France as a nation-state and the policies since the victory over Nazism. The support from American neo-conservative Richard Perle, "he will get us rid of the Gaullist obsession to differentiate France from the United States," banker Felix Rohatyn or Tony Blair are the best proof of that. The role of Antoine Bernheim, the old lion of Lazard Frères and the Assicurazioni Generali insurance giant, who maintains something like a father-like relationship with the new President of the Republic, makes Sarkozy's being sponsored and coached by the financial synarchy even more explicit, if that were ever needed.

We use the words "sponsored and coached" to illustrate the jetsetter nature of the adventure. Here we have a newly elected President, leaving Fouquet's restaurant sporting jeans and a blazer, and later meeting his Prime Minister designate in his shorts and running shoes. With Giscard we had "devine qui vient diner" ["guess who's coming for dinner"], and now it is "guess with whom I go jogging or yachting." The dignity of our Presidential stature evaporates, since France became a subsidiary of financial globalization.

The Finance Ministry, known as "Bercy," is being chopped up into a Ministry of Public Accounts and public sector whose neo-liberal "logic" will be to cut public spending to the barest necessities for the survival of the state, and to hand over the most profitable parts to the private sector. This cost-accounting logic sacrifices long-term capital investment to quick profits, which is what gave rise to the fortunes of Messrs. Bouygues, Bollore, Arnault and Pinault, and destroyed the purchasing power of 75% of the population. "Work more to earn more!" thus means enriching speculators, service sector tycoons, and the beneficiaries of public contracts. Note here that the majority of current functionaries in the Economics and Finance Ministry will be integrated into this ministry of cutbacks, while the other, new Ministry of Economics, Finance, and Employment will help privatize what remains of the French public sector.

Along with this financial logic goes a foreign policy that serves its promoters. Bernard Kouchner, the new Foreign Minister, is a pseudo "man of the left" who supported the Bush-Cheney war against Iraq. He will be flanked by Jean-David Levitte (who will be Sarkozy's close diplomatic advisor at the Elysee); Levitte re-established contacts with the Bush Administration after Jacques Chirac and Dominique Villepin imposed the French veto against Cheney's Iraq adventure. Secretary of State for European Affairs Jean-Pierre Jouyet has the mission to make France adopt a European Union mini-treaty which Sarkozy wants to ram through Parliament, which he thinks he can kick around, to reverse the French popular referendum "no" in May 2005 rejecting the so-called European constitution.

Brice Hortefeux, a friend of Sarkozy since 30 years, got the very controversial Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development. In this way he can keep an eye on Africa on behalf of his boss, undoubtedly to find there young talents.

In brief, one could go on at the risk of becoming fastidious. We simply mention two Judasses, or comedy traitors, Hervé Morin, the friend of François Bayrou, who will be Defense Minister, and the illustrious Eric Besson, Secretary of State in charge of evaluation of public policies, a post for which his previous functions at Vivendi have certainly prepared him.

At the very moment that the process leading to the impeachment of Vice-President Cheney is shaping up in the United States under the guidance of my American friends, and at a time when economic cooperation between Russia, India and China is intensifying, the Sarkozy government is stripping France of any power for independent intervention. France is now, in the proper sense of the term, and without punning on the cops [ poulets ] in its chicken coop, a chicken's ass of a government.

Hence this political farce, between the glitterati, jet-setters, Judases, business tycoons, is a veritable tragedy.

I've defined what our political movement intends to do. We're not out to take a position inside the system, as the others do, but to define a project to get out of the situation. A project, and not a program, that is, an orientation able to inspire and catalyze a wide range of forces committed to social justice, to human creativity and its economic expression, and opposed to the predatory logic of short-term profit which degenerates into a war of each against all.

Pierre Mendès-France was known to ask about acquaintances about whom he knew little: "Is he a man of honor?" This is the question this government prompts us to ask, in order to inspire a new Résistance against the financier and counterculture occupation of our country.